Excerpts from my writing on my name, broad beans, the moon, the rain, the land, and other things:
My name is Xia Chengwei.
I once searched for the Five-Element attributes of my name on DeepSeek. It told me that Xia belongs to Fire, Cheng to Metal, and Wei to Earth. According to the Eight Characters, Fire and Earth both restrain me, while Cheng brings me great benefit, because the elements I favor are Metal and Water.
This reminded me of a story my grandmother once told about my name: when I was born, my parents wanted to name me Xia Weiwei, but my grandmother insisted on adding Cheng in the middle, because it represented my generational order. This story offers a meaningful clue: on the one hand, I can see how urgently my parents wanted to sever the tether to our rural homeland, unwilling to let their daughter’s name carry the mark of the family lineage; on the other hand, my grandmother was striving to preserve that tradition, placing Cheng—a seed from the ancient soil that holds our family and our land—into the name of the next generation.
By chance, my grandmother gave me a character with a strong Metal attribute. Metal generates Water, dissolving the pressure from the Fire in Xia and the Earth in Wei. And this character had already been assigned to me by the family genealogy. It was a gift from my grandmother, and a gift from my ancestors.
When I was in London, I would always introduce my name this way: My surname is Xia, meaning “summer,” and my given name is Chengwei. Cheng is a character that belongs to the collective, one shared by everyone of my generation in the Xia family back home. Wei is a preposition in classical Chinese—a function word that helps complete the meaning of a sentence but carries little concrete meaning on its own.
This explanation is also my own understanding of my name: summer, a shared character, and a preposition. Although my name can also be interpreted as “becoming the only one,” I dislike that reading. What I feel more strongly in my name is a connection to my ancestors, a connection to the people of my generation who come from that land, and that sense of emptiness—something that points to nothing in particular, that does not direct meaning, yet allows meaning to occur within a sentence, like the wei in “惟民所止” (where the people dwell).
I have also used “becoming the only one” to explain my name before; it seems the most immediate and obvious meaning these two characters suggest in modern Chinese. But gradually I realized that this meaning itself is questionable. What does it mean to be “the only one”? If every person and every thing in the world is already unique, then what is there to “become”? To “become the only one” seems to emphasize a kind of personal striving, yet it also carries a fated sense of loneliness.
The other side of Chengwei, however, is connection—to all beings, to a larger world, to the vast emptiness into which the human collective and the cosmos dissolve. It is a kind of expansive love. This meaning fascinates me more. I feel that my life is a journey from the Chengwei that strives to be the only one toward the Chengwei that belongs to love and emptiness.
Recently we harvested the broad beans, and the yard is now piled high with broad bean stalks. The stalks are dry and black, taller than I had imagined. I had only ever seen broad beans when they were just beginning to flower, usually around the New Year—the blossoms like little butterflies in shades of blue, purple, black, and white. I never realized that after blooming, the plants would continue to grow so tall. The pods are also dry and black, tightly wrapping the ripe, plump beans inside.
There were broad beans in the tale my grandmother used to tell about the Bear Crone.
“Granny, what are you crunching on so hard?”
“I’m chewing the dried broad beans your grandfather gave me.”
In truth, the Bear Crone was gnawing on the younger sister’s fingers.
“Granny, what are you crunching on again?”
“I’m still chewing the dried broad beans your grandfather gave me.”
In truth, the Bear Crone was gnawing on the younger sister’s toes.
“Granny, let me have some dried broad beans too.”
“Your grandfather didn’t give me many. I’ve got none left.”
Dried broad beans were one of the terrors of my childhood. When I was five, I stuck a dried bean up my nostril. It was sucked into the nasal cavity and swelled from mucus until it couldn’t be removed. I didn’t dare tell any adults. My grandmother noticed my breathing sounded wrong when I slept and took me to the hospital. The doctor used a long, sharp pair of forceps to pull the swollen bean from deep inside my nose.
At the end of the story, the elder sister climbs onto the peach tree in the courtyard.
“Granny, I’ll pick a peach for you. Open your mouth wide, and I’ll drop it right in.”
In the moonlight, the Bear Crone opened her gaping, bloody mouth beneath the tree. The sister, who had long prepared a sharpened knife, thrust it straight into the Bear Crone’s throat.
My grandmother told this story to me many times—often on moonlit nights, the two of us lying in bed as I listened to her voice. Once she told me that when she was a girl, she could climb trees very well. On nights with a bright moon, she would climb the peach tree to pick fruit, stuffing those honey-sweet peaches into her mouth one after another.
On the night of Lixia—the Beginning of Summer—it rained. My grandmother got out of bed to gather the broad bean stalks in the yard before they got soaked.
She hadn’t slept well, but the next day she was delighted, repeating again and again:
“Rain on Lixia, plough and harrow won’t hang high.”
If it doesn’t rain on the Beginning of Summer, the fields will dry out, the ploughs and harrows will hang untouched. If it does rain, the summer rains will be good. My grandmother was reciting a rain-divination prophecy.
“On the twenty-third day of the fifth lunar month:
If it rains hard, a great drought;
If it rains lightly, a small drought;
If it doesn’t rain, then no drought.”
This, too, was one of her rain prophecies.
Even the Gui-gui-yang proverb was actually a form of rain divination: “It’s good to farm on the mountaintops” means there will be plentiful rain, enough to turn even mountain soil fertile; “In the valley, plant soybeans” means there will be little rain, and the valley fields will dry up — you can’t grow rice there, only drought-resistant soybeans.
My grandmother always liked to ask me, “Can you recite the twenty-four solar terms?”
Before I could answer, she would begin chanting them in the sing-song tone used for Gui-gui-yang. It was as if she had many more seasons to pass through than just spring, summer, autumn, and winter—twenty-four specific ones, and beyond them, other nodes in time: the fifth day of the fifth month when we hang calamus and mugwort; the twenty-third of the fifth month when rain is divined; the eighth day of the twelfth month when we cook Laba porridge; the nineteenth day of the twelfth month when we beat dust from the house; the twenty-third day of the twelfth month when we honor the Kitchen God. Many days that seem unremarkable to others were, to her, important thresholds. These formed her sense of time, her cosmos.
Perhaps my grandmother’s rain prophecy worked, because it rained again last night. Early-summer rainwater is precious. She no longer needs to carry water to the fields; she can sow seeds directly into the moist soil. Across the river in the Five-Thatch Field, she dug neat little round holes, sprinkled sesame seeds into them, then covered them with wood ash. In the 1960s this plot was converted into five rice paddies, hence the name Five-Thatch Field. Now it is no longer paddy land but simply a piece of earth. In it my grandmother planted two rows of loquat trees, heavy with fruit turning from green to yellow. Beneath the loquat trees she can plant things—sometimes peanuts, sometimes sweet potatoes. This year she sowed white sesame.
Wood ash drifted down like powder, covering the red, sticky soil and covering the white sesame seeds, feeding the earth as it fed the seeds. The soil nourishes the life of the plants, and also nourishes our own lives.
我的名字叫夏成惟。
我在DeepSeek上搜索我的名字的五行属性。它告诉我，夏属火，成属金，惟属土。按八字来看，火和土都克我，而“成”对我有极大的补益，因为我喜用金和水。
我想起了从奶奶那里听来的关于我的名字的故事：我刚出生的时候，父母想给我取名“夏惟惟”，而奶奶执意要在中间加上“成”，因为那是我的辈分。这个故事提供了一个意味深长的线索：一方面，我看到父母急切地想切断与老家土地的系绳，不愿意让女儿的名字携带家族的辈分；另一方面，奶奶在努力延续着这个传统，要让代表着家族和土地的“成”——这颗古老的土壤里的种子——安放进下一代的名字里。
奶奶很巧地给了我一个带有很强的金属性的字，金生水，化解了“夏”的火和“惟”的土的压制。这个字又是族谱上早就安排好的。这是奶奶给我的礼物，也是祖先给我的礼物。
在伦敦的时候，我总是这样介绍我的名字：我姓夏，意思是夏天，我的名字是成惟。成是一个属于集体的大家共享的字，在我老家，我这一辈的姓夏的人的名字中间都有“成”字。“惟”是一个古汉语虚词，帮助其他字词完成句子的意思，它本身并没有什么具体的含义。
这种解释也正是我对自己名字的理解：夏天，一个共享的字，一个虚词。尽管我的名字也可以被理解为“成为唯一”，但我并不喜欢这样的解读。我在我的名字里感受到的更多的是和祖先的连结，和来自那片土地的我这一代人的连结，以及那种“虚”——并不特指什么，也并不主导意义，却可以让意义在句子里发生，比如“惟民所止”里的“惟”。
我也曾经用“成为唯一”来解释过我的名字，这似乎是现代汉语里这两个字最直接最明显的含义。但我逐渐意识到，这个意思本身就值得怀疑。什么叫“唯一”？如果世间每个人、每一样事物都独一无二，为什么又要去“成为”？成为唯一，似乎在强调一种个人的进取心，但是也带有一种宿命般的孤独色彩。
而“成惟”意思的另一面，是与众生的连结，与更大的世界的连结，是消融于人类集体以及广阔宇宙的空，是一种宏大的爱。这个意思更让我着迷。我觉得我的一生，就是从成为唯一的“成惟”走向那个爱与空的“成惟”。
**
My name is Xia Chengwei.
I once searched for the Five-Element attributes of my name on DeepSeek. It told me that Xia belongs to Fire, Cheng to Metal, and Wei to Earth. According to the Eight Characters, Fire and Earth both restrain me, while Cheng brings me great benefit, because the elements I favor are Metal and Water.
This reminded me of a story my grandmother once told about my name: when I was born, my parents wanted to name me Xia Weiwei, but my grandmother insisted on adding Cheng in the middle, because it represented my generational order. This story offers a meaningful clue: on the one hand, I can see how urgently my parents wanted to sever the tether to our rural homeland, unwilling to let their daughter’s name carry the mark of the family lineage; on the other hand, my grandmother was striving to preserve that tradition, placing Cheng—a seed from the ancient soil that holds our family and our land—into the name of the next generation.
By chance, my grandmother gave me a character with a strong Metal attribute. Metal generates Water, dissolving the pressure from the Fire in Xia and the Earth in Wei. And this character had already been assigned to me by the family genealogy. It was a gift from my grandmother, and a gift from my ancestors.
When I was in London, I would always introduce my name this way: My surname is Xia, meaning “summer,” and my given name is Chengwei. Cheng is a character that belongs to the collective, one shared by everyone of my generation in the Xia family back home. Wei is a preposition in classical Chinese—a function word that helps complete the meaning of a sentence but carries little concrete meaning on its own.
This explanation is also my own understanding of my name: summer, a shared character, and a preposition. Although my name can also be interpreted as “becoming the only one,” I dislike that reading. What I feel more strongly in my name is a connection to my ancestors, a connection to the people of my generation who come from that land, and that sense of emptiness—something that points to nothing in particular, that does not direct meaning, yet allows meaning to occur within a sentence, like the wei in “惟民所止” (where the people dwell).
I have also used “becoming the only one” to explain my name before; it seems the most immediate and obvious meaning these two characters suggest in modern Chinese. But gradually I realized that this meaning itself is questionable. What does it mean to be “the only one”? If every person and every thing in the world is already unique, then what is there to “become”? To “become the only one” seems to emphasize a kind of personal striving, yet it also carries a fated sense of loneliness.
The other side of Chengwei, however, is connection—to all beings, to a larger world, to the vast emptiness into which the human collective and the cosmos dissolve. It is a kind of expansive love. This meaning fascinates me more. I feel that my life is a journey from the Chengwei that strives to be the only one toward the Chengwei that belongs to love and emptiness.
*
Recently we harvested the broad beans, and the yard is now piled high with broad bean stalks. The stalks are dry and black, taller than I had imagined. I had only ever seen broad beans when they were just beginning to flower, usually around the New Year—the blossoms like little butterflies in shades of blue, purple, black, and white. I never realized that after blooming, the plants would continue to grow so tall. The pods are also dry and black, tightly wrapping the ripe, plump beans inside.
There were broad beans in the tale my grandmother used to tell about the Bear Crone.
“Granny, what are you crunching on so hard?”
“I’m chewing the dried broad beans your grandfather gave me.”
In truth, the Bear Crone was gnawing on the younger sister’s fingers.
“Granny, what are you crunching on again?”
“I’m still chewing the dried broad beans your grandfather gave me.”
In truth, the Bear Crone was gnawing on the younger sister’s toes.
“Granny, let me have some dried broad beans too.”
“Your grandfather didn’t give me many. I’ve got none left.”
Dried broad beans were one of the terrors of my childhood. When I was five, I stuck a dried bean up my nostril. It was sucked into the nasal cavity and swelled from mucus until it couldn’t be removed. I didn’t dare tell any adults. My grandmother noticed my breathing sounded wrong when I slept and took me to the hospital. The doctor used a long, sharp pair of forceps to pull the swollen bean from deep inside my nose.
At the end of the story, the elder sister climbs onto the peach tree in the courtyard.
“Granny, I’ll pick a peach for you. Open your mouth wide, and I’ll drop it right in.”
In the moonlight, the Bear Crone opened her gaping, bloody mouth beneath the tree. The sister, who had long prepared a sharpened knife, thrust it straight into the Bear Crone’s throat.
My grandmother told this story to me many times—often on moonlit nights, the two of us lying in bed as I listened to her voice. Once she told me that when she was a girl, she could climb trees very well. On nights with a bright moon, she would climb the peach tree to pick fruit, stuffing those honey-sweet peaches into her mouth one after another.
On the night of Lixia—the Beginning of Summer—it rained. My grandmother got out of bed to gather the broad bean stalks in the yard before they got soaked.
She hadn’t slept well, but the next day she was delighted, repeating again and again:
“Rain on Lixia, plough and harrow won’t hang high.”
If it doesn’t rain on the Beginning of Summer, the fields will dry out, the ploughs and harrows will hang untouched. If it does rain, the summer rains will be good. My grandmother was reciting a rain-divination prophecy.
“On the twenty-third day of the fifth lunar month:
If it rains hard, a great drought;
If it rains lightly, a small drought;
If it doesn’t rain, then no drought.”
This, too, was one of her rain prophecies.
Even the Gui-gui-yang proverb was actually a form of rain divination: “It’s good to farm on the mountaintops” means there will be plentiful rain, enough to turn even mountain soil fertile; “In the valley, plant soybeans” means there will be little rain, and the valley fields will dry up — you can’t grow rice there, only drought-resistant soybeans.
My grandmother always liked to ask me, “Can you recite the twenty-four solar terms?”
Before I could answer, she would begin chanting them in the sing-song tone used for Gui-gui-yang. It was as if she had many more seasons to pass through than just spring, summer, autumn, and winter—twenty-four specific ones, and beyond them, other nodes in time: the fifth day of the fifth month when we hang calamus and mugwort; the twenty-third of the fifth month when rain is divined; the eighth day of the twelfth month when we cook Laba porridge; the nineteenth day of the twelfth month when we beat dust from the house; the twenty-third day of the twelfth month when we honor the Kitchen God. Many days that seem unremarkable to others were, to her, important thresholds. These formed her sense of time, her cosmos.
Perhaps my grandmother’s rain prophecy worked, because it rained again last night. Early-summer rainwater is precious. She no longer needs to carry water to the fields; she can sow seeds directly into the moist soil. Across the river in the Five-Thatch Field, she dug neat little round holes, sprinkled sesame seeds into them, then covered them with wood ash. In the 1960s this plot was converted into five rice paddies, hence the name Five-Thatch Field. Now it is no longer paddy land but simply a piece of earth. In it my grandmother planted two rows of loquat trees, heavy with fruit turning from green to yellow. Beneath the loquat trees she can plant things—sometimes peanuts, sometimes sweet potatoes. This year she sowed white sesame.
Wood ash drifted down like powder, covering the red, sticky soil and covering the white sesame seeds, feeding the earth as it fed the seeds. The soil nourishes the life of the plants, and also nourishes our own lives.
*
我的名字叫夏成惟。
我在DeepSeek上搜索我的名字的五行属性。它告诉我，夏属火，成属金，惟属土。按八字来看，火和土都克我，而“成”对我有极大的补益，因为我喜用金和水。
我想起了从奶奶那里听来的关于我的名字的故事：我刚出生的时候，父母想给我取名“夏惟惟”，而奶奶执意要在中间加上“成”，因为那是我的辈分。这个故事提供了一个意味深长的线索：一方面，我看到父母急切地想切断与老家土地的系绳，不愿意让女儿的名字携带家族的辈分；另一方面，奶奶在努力延续着这个传统，要让代表着家族和土地的“成”——这颗古老的土壤里的种子——安放进下一代的名字里。
奶奶很巧地给了我一个带有很强的金属性的字，金生水，化解了“夏”的火和“惟”的土的压制。这个字又是族谱上早就安排好的。这是奶奶给我的礼物，也是祖先给我的礼物。
在伦敦的时候，我总是这样介绍我的名字：我姓夏，意思是夏天，我的名字是成惟。成是一个属于集体的大家共享的字，在我老家，我这一辈的姓夏的人的名字中间都有“成”字。“惟”是一个古汉语虚词，帮助其他字词完成句子的意思，它本身并没有什么具体的含义。
这种解释也正是我对自己名字的理解：夏天，一个共享的字，一个虚词。尽管我的名字也可以被理解为“成为唯一”，但我并不喜欢这样的解读。我在我的名字里感受到的更多的是和祖先的连结，和来自那片土地的我这一代人的连结，以及那种“虚”——并不特指什么，也并不主导意义，却可以让意义在句子里发生，比如“惟民所止”里的“惟”。
我也曾经用“成为唯一”来解释过我的名字，这似乎是现代汉语里这两个字最直接最明显的含义。但我逐渐意识到，这个意思本身就值得怀疑。什么叫“唯一”？如果世间每个人、每一样事物都独一无二，为什么又要去“成为”？成为唯一，似乎在强调一种个人的进取心，但是也带有一种宿命般的孤独色彩。
而“成惟”意思的另一面，是与众生的连结，与更大的世界的连结，是消融于人类集体以及广阔宇宙的空，是一种宏大的爱。这个意思更让我着迷。我觉得我的一生，就是从成为唯一的“成惟”走向那个爱与空的“成惟”。
最近收了胡豆，院子里堆满了胡豆杆。胡豆杆是干干的黑色，比我想象的要高一些。我之前只看见过刚刚开花的时候的胡豆，一般是在过年的时候，那些花朵像一只只蓝色、紫色、黑色、白色的蝴蝶，没想到开了花后胡豆还要继续长那么高。胡豆荚也是干干的黑色，紧紧地包裹着成熟而饱满的胡豆。
奶奶给我讲的熊家婆的故事里就有胡豆。
“家婆，你磕啦磕地得咬啥子？”
“我咬的你们家公给我的干胡豆。”
其实熊家婆在嚼妹妹的手指头。
“家婆，你磕啦磕地又得咬啥子？”
“我还是得咬你们家公给我的干胡豆。”
其实熊家婆在嚼妹妹的脚趾头。
“家婆，给我咬点干胡豆嘛。”
“你们家公没给我好多的嘛，我都没得了。”
干胡豆是我的童年的恐惧。五岁的时候，我把一颗干胡豆塞到鼻孔里，后来干胡豆被吸进了鼻腔，又被鼻涕泡胀了，怎么也取不出来。我不敢告诉大人。奶奶听我晚上睡觉的时候呼吸不对劲，就把我带到医院，医生用又尖又长的镊子从我的鼻子深处夹出来那颗泡胀的干胡豆。
故事的最后，姐姐爬上了院子里的桃子树。
“家婆，我给你摘桃子吃。你把嘴巴张开，我把桃子丢到你嘴巴头。”
月色里，熊家婆在树下张开了血盆大口。姐姐把早已准备好的一把磨快的尖刀，插进了熊家婆的喉咙里。
这个故事奶奶给我讲了很多次，很多时候都是在有月亮的晚上讲的，我们一起躺在床上，听着她的故事。有一次，奶奶说她当姑娘的时候很会爬树，在大月亮的晚上爬到桃子树上摘桃子吃，把流蜜汁的桃子一个个塞到嘴里。
立夏那天晚上下雨了，奶奶起床，抢收院子里的胡豆杆。
虽然没有睡好觉，但是第二天她很高兴，反复念道：“立夏不下，犁耙高挂。”
立夏不下雨，今年夏天就会干旱，犁不了田，耙不了地。立夏下雨了，今年夏天雨水就会好。奶奶在念占雨的谶语。
“五月二十三，大落大干，小落小干，不落不干。”
农历五月二十三，如果下大雨，这个夏天就会有大旱，如果下小雨，这个夏天就会有小旱，如果不下雨，这个夏天就不会旱。
这也是奶奶的雨水谶语。
贵贵洋的谚语其实也是占雨的谶语。高山顶上好种田，意思是雨水会多，山上的土都能变成良田；正沟田都要种黄豆，意思是雨水少，沟里的田都干了，种不了稻谷，只能种耐旱的黄豆。
奶奶总是喜欢问我，背得到二十四节气不？不等我回答，她就会用念“贵贵洋”的那种唱歌的声调背起来。奶奶好像有许多个更具体的季节要度过，不只是春夏秋冬这四个。而在这二十四个具体的季节之外，还有那些节点，比如挂菖蒲尘艾的五月初五，预测雨水的五月二十三，煮腊八粥的腊月初八，打扬尘的腊月十九，敬灶神菩萨的腊月二十三。很多似乎不起眼的日子，对她来说都是一个重要的节点。这些构成了她的时间，她的宇宙。
大概奶奶的雨谶起了作用，昨晚又下了雨。初夏的雨水很宝贵，奶奶不需要担水浇地，就可以直接在湿润的泥土里播种。她把河对面五厢田的土翻出一个个整齐的小圆坑，撒上芝麻，再撒上草木灰。这片地在六十年代被改成了五块稻田，所以叫五厢田。现在它已经不是田了，变回了一块土，土里奶奶栽了两行枇杷树，挂了很多果，这些果正在由青转黄。枇杷树下可以种东西。有时候她会在那里种花生，有时候是红薯，今年她种的是白芝麻。
草木灰纷纷扬扬地落下，覆盖在红色的黏性泥土上，覆盖在白芝麻粒上，在喂养着泥土，也在喂养着种子。泥土在喂养着植物的生命，也在喂养着我们的生命。
奶奶给我讲的熊家婆的故事里就有胡豆。
“家婆，你磕啦磕地得咬啥子？”
“我咬的你们家公给我的干胡豆。”
其实熊家婆在嚼妹妹的手指头。
“家婆，你磕啦磕地又得咬啥子？”
“我还是得咬你们家公给我的干胡豆。”
其实熊家婆在嚼妹妹的脚趾头。
“家婆，给我咬点干胡豆嘛。”
“你们家公没给我好多的嘛，我都没得了。”
干胡豆是我的童年的恐惧。五岁的时候，我把一颗干胡豆塞到鼻孔里，后来干胡豆被吸进了鼻腔，又被鼻涕泡胀了，怎么也取不出来。我不敢告诉大人。奶奶听我晚上睡觉的时候呼吸不对劲，就把我带到医院，医生用又尖又长的镊子从我的鼻子深处夹出来那颗泡胀的干胡豆。
故事的最后，姐姐爬上了院子里的桃子树。
“家婆，我给你摘桃子吃。你把嘴巴张开，我把桃子丢到你嘴巴头。”
月色里，熊家婆在树下张开了血盆大口。姐姐把早已准备好的一把磨快的尖刀，插进了熊家婆的喉咙里。
这个故事奶奶给我讲了很多次，很多时候都是在有月亮的晚上讲的，我们一起躺在床上，听着她的故事。有一次，奶奶说她当姑娘的时候很会爬树，在大月亮的晚上爬到桃子树上摘桃子吃，把流蜜汁的桃子一个个塞到嘴里。
立夏那天晚上下雨了，奶奶起床，抢收院子里的胡豆杆。
虽然没有睡好觉，但是第二天她很高兴，反复念道：“立夏不下，犁耙高挂。”
立夏不下雨，今年夏天就会干旱，犁不了田，耙不了地。立夏下雨了，今年夏天雨水就会好。奶奶在念占雨的谶语。
“五月二十三，大落大干，小落小干，不落不干。”
农历五月二十三，如果下大雨，这个夏天就会有大旱，如果下小雨，这个夏天就会有小旱，如果不下雨，这个夏天就不会旱。
这也是奶奶的雨水谶语。
贵贵洋的谚语其实也是占雨的谶语。高山顶上好种田，意思是雨水会多，山上的土都能变成良田；正沟田都要种黄豆，意思是雨水少，沟里的田都干了，种不了稻谷，只能种耐旱的黄豆。
奶奶总是喜欢问我，背得到二十四节气不？不等我回答，她就会用念“贵贵洋”的那种唱歌的声调背起来。奶奶好像有许多个更具体的季节要度过，不只是春夏秋冬这四个。而在这二十四个具体的季节之外，还有那些节点，比如挂菖蒲尘艾的五月初五，预测雨水的五月二十三，煮腊八粥的腊月初八，打扬尘的腊月十九，敬灶神菩萨的腊月二十三。很多似乎不起眼的日子，对她来说都是一个重要的节点。这些构成了她的时间，她的宇宙。
大概奶奶的雨谶起了作用，昨晚又下了雨。初夏的雨水很宝贵，奶奶不需要担水浇地，就可以直接在湿润的泥土里播种。她把河对面五厢田的土翻出一个个整齐的小圆坑，撒上芝麻，再撒上草木灰。这片地在六十年代被改成了五块稻田，所以叫五厢田。现在它已经不是田了，变回了一块土，土里奶奶栽了两行枇杷树，挂了很多果，这些果正在由青转黄。枇杷树下可以种东西。有时候她会在那里种花生，有时候是红薯，今年她种的是白芝麻。
草木灰纷纷扬扬地落下，覆盖在红色的黏性泥土上，覆盖在白芝麻粒上，在喂养着泥土，也在喂养着种子。泥土在喂养着植物的生命，也在喂养着我们的生命。